I’d agree but then there will just be an annual law that blanket renews all the laws that would expire in the upcoming year.
How about laws without cute names and that began by describing the problem they intend to solve? I have been told they are written that way in russia though I have no way to verify.
> I’d agree but then there will just be an annual law that blanket renews all the laws that would expire in the upcoming year.
maybe so, but every so often you get a happy accident. the patriot act missed its most recent deadline for renewal and is still not in effect (though not for a particularly good reason).
How about law as a subscription service? The maxim is if it has value in people’s eyes, then people should be willing to pay a monthly fee for it, voluntarily and without coercion.
A big part of government function is managing externalities (pollution, food safety, roads etc) -- things that are not economic when purchased individually. They suffer from a free rider issue: I benefit from clean air whether I pay for it or not.
In addition I don't know enough about traffic safety to figure out what the best speed limit is for certain roads, nor how the road should be constructed (especially given local environmental conditions, estimated use etc). It's cheaper overall to outsource it to people who know. Otherwise how can I decide if I want to subscribe to that safety rail at the edge of a certain roadway?
>A big part of government function is managing externalities (pollution, food safety, roads etc) -- things that are not economic when purchased individually.
Says you.
Damn near every government (from local to national) has a charter more along the lines of "do these specific mostly administrative things that we agree are best done at this level".
Taxes are pretty much that, but I suppose "with coercion".
Otherwise, if it's truly pick and choose... how much thought did we give to this? :)
Will everybody pay equally for each law, or rich people pay more?
If rich people pay more, and they decide they don't like the tax avoidance laws, will they be disproportionally funded?
If everybody pays the same, this will be proportionally harsher for poor people.
Most people will not pay for 97% of the laws which may be overall important but don't impact them directly - e.g. I live in Toronto so don't car about fisheries laws, etc.
Some people will not pay for laws they personally don't want to abide buy - from speeding tickets to financial regulations to fitness of goods and services etc.
I don't think this would work, but it does remind me of an idle thought I sometimes have. some nonprofits allow donors to make conditional donations. for example, you might donate to a school, but stipulate that the money can only be spent on the theater program. I wonder what would happen if taxes worked the same way. you have to pay the same amount no matter what (and maybe some gets preallocated towards nondiscretionary spending), but you would get to pick from a few broad categories where your tax dollars go. would probably be a disaster, but interesting to think about. from a certain perspective, it might increase the "legitimacy" of government programs.
I think "just give it to the feds instead" should be a checkbox on everyone's state taxes. It would give the states a clear monetary reason to make their inhabitants not resent them.
That would be nice if you could also elect to give your fed monies to the local gov’t. That way the different governments could compete for the provision of good government.
> think so too. The government has to pass a budget every year. Would it really be too much to ask of them to reaffirm old laws every 10-20 years?
You realize the federal government shuts down every so often fro days to months because they cant get there act together on the budget. can you imagine the chaos that would insue in the current political climate if one party or the other thought they could hold a major law hostage to what ever cause they want.
Most governments manage to pass a budget every year. The American government's exceptional incompetence should not be treated as a foregone conclusion -- and their inability to pass laws speak more to the innate unfairness of unaffirmed laws than anything else! Imagine if they would simply have to defend every law like the Assault Weapons Ban. We'd have fewer laws. Fewer by FAR.
> Most governments manage to pass a budget every year.
Not exactly. Two things are going on here that makes the US "special". I would argue they're both design mistakes in the US government, its proponents will doubtless chime in that it's supposed to be like this, and presumably they are proud of the results...
1. Appropriations bills. In most countries it is seen as a foregone conclusion that the government should continue to operate. Politicians steer, but in their absence the ship of state continues onwards on auto-pilot. The US has never entirely worked that way, and last century the GOP intentionally destroyed some of the mechanisms to let it keep running in their absence, because of course they did. So, Congress must explicitly pass bills at least once per year that say the government will pay for things, or else important government functions just stop. Nothing like these Appropriations Bills exists in most countries.
2. Separate Executive. In most democratic countries there is ultimately a single elected power, even if it looks on the surface as though there are two or more political power centres, one of them is actually running everything. In this situation there is no conflict between policy and budget, so of course a "government budget" will pass.
One of the few upsides to another US civil war is it's likely that there would be an opportunity to redesign the US government in the aftermath. We've learned a lot about how to design governments since the 18th century.
This is a moot point anyway; laws can be overwritten with new laws. Perhaps requiring a supermajority (2/3) to remove would be useful, but even still, _having_ the laws put into question would be a remarkable use of time, keeping law orderly. I suppose the US Code might help with that effort; in the UK it's a tad more disorganised.
I have thought this for a long time. I also think they should have to be voted in by the public, with a higher percentage required as the geographical area expands.
It's insane that we can be born into the tyranny of rotting corpses.